Learning is a lonely journey. Individual effort drives accomplishments forward.

It is true that great things happen in groups. New ideas come up, are refined, and the product can be even better than anything imagined by an individual within the group. However, the push, the passion, the refinement, begins and ends within each individual.

As I mentioned in Lessons from the Gym, the heavy lifters and superstars do the meat of their work alone. Your friends may be happy that you found a new way to make an Anki card, or discovered that one of your favorite Super Nintendo games was translated into the language you are learning, but the joy and appreciation only truly exists within the individual.

I am not proposing locking yourself into a library or room and slamming your head into a wall thinking you have to commit Anglo-Saxon Masochism (thanks Khatz.) I am saying to put in small efforts throughout the day to accomplish something great, understanding that it has to be for you. The passion and purpose has to exist within the person, or the flame will flicker and cease.

Study Shack - Efficient Studying

In addition to the SRS there are many helpful tools to help get through Organic Chemistry. These are all tools I used while in Organic Chemistry or while studying for the DAT.

Organic Chemistry as a Second Language introduces concepts in a fair and understandable way. I found it essential and took the place of a tutor. Working through confusions instead of having it taught to me gave me a great understanding of the material.

Chad’s Organic Chemistry videos are made for MCAT/DAT review, and they are helpful for anyone currently in the course. They helped me a lot when I was studying for the DAT and I wish I had them for the MCAT and while I was in Organic Chemistry. If the video is having trouble playing try using VLC Video Player. Copy the things Chad writes on the board onto a piece of paper, then put the examples and facts into the SRS. (Note 8/23/10: Chad’s videos have recently become pay-to-access. I have been told they are updated and higher quality than before. The old videos were worth the asking price, so I imagine the updated ones contain as much or more value. If you have experience with it please post in the comments.)

Using printer paper instead of loose leaf paper. A stack of several hundred will cost a few dollars. The lines on loose leaf paper can be mentally constricting and get in the way of the material. I only realized how beneficial this after making the switch. A clever person shared this idea with me.

Practice problems from the book are usually good hints to what may come on an exam. Before I began using SRS to study I would do problems over and over again until I could barely think. Creatively putting them into the SRS using the Organic Chemistry models will save time and brain frying. If there is a solutions book to the textbook, I recommend that as well. Costs less than taking the class again!

Going to class

Some people like the rubber/plastic models. I used mine to make animal shapes. They may help when tackling stereochemistry.

A cool trick I found to quickly count carbons:

  Since the carbon chain is “open”, having one terminal carbon “up” and the other “down”, we know it is an even number of carbons.

Each circled bar is two carbons. Four bars = 8 carbons.

  Since the carbon chain is “closed” in that it begins and ends at the same side, we know there is an odd number of carbons.

Each circled “bar” is 2 carbons. Count the number of bars and add one. Five carbons!

In addition to the SRS there are many helpful tools to help get through Organic Chemistry. These are all tools I used while in Organic Chemistry or while studying for the DAT.

Study Shack - Efficient Studying

Every legend starts from zero. Bruce Lee was beat up in an alleyway in China by children larger than him. Michael Jordan admits that his success his attributed to his failures. Jordan is proud of his failures:

I have missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot… and missed. And I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why… I succeed.

I was asked in an interview once “How do you handle failure?” This surprised me. As if failure is a rare moment of challenge while success bursts at every seam of life. The reality is the opposite for anyone serious about effectively learning a skill or studying for an exam.

Khatzumoto at AJATT(Aim to Fail) was my first introduction to the wonders of failure. I came to revel in it. Failure means later success. If we are afraid of failure, we move nowhere. If the great people of the world stopped at their failures, then our human civilization would have never advanced. The guy who invented fire was unlikely some genius and nailed this fire thing on his first try. Famously Thomas Edison took 3000 attempts to invent the light bulb. Gandhi worked for 34 years to peacefully bring independence to India.

Every great accomplishment is built on the graves of countless failures. In How Children Learn, John Holt discusses a teaching experience. An eight-year-old class was playing a number guessing game. The teacher said the number was between 1 and 1000. A girl raised her hand and asked if the number was between 500 and 1000. The teacher said her guess was incorrect. The girl became frustrated and angry. However she learned the same information as if the answer was yes. The author says this shows how our education system teaches favoring correct answers and failures are just right out.

Anki is a clear win or try again. There are degrees of correctness, though it is quantifiable as a “right” or “try again.” Many traditional methods have a grey area of correctness. Flash cards with loads of information can be “well.. I got this part right…” so the remaining information may be studied less. Passively reading the material means it is impossible to fail. This is also one of the least effective methods to study, close to avoiding study altogether.

SRS is inherently the dealer of failures. The first, second, third, fourth, however many times seeing a card will likely be a failure. This is okay and means it is working. The failures are little seeds that will grow into success and strong memories. The failures are usually the first few times seeing a card. For only a few minutes a day, this is fine. The magic of SRS comes a few times after seeing the card and suddenly it is remembered with barely any effort.

Love the failures. Eat them for breakfast. Cover yourself in failures. Dive head first into the failure pool – it is the only way to learn how to swim.

Study Shack - Efficient Studying

By seeing a fact occasionally it can memorized with little effort. This is a familiar concept to experienced studiers. They may notice that studying in portions over time produces stronger memories and develops far less stress. This is the nature of spaced repetition.

We have all had experience with spaced repetition. Which candy is the freshmaker? All we need is _____? What is the name of a radio station in your area? Now another: When did you study these? Most of us never tried to commit these facts to memory, yet they can be recalled almost instantly without effort. By seeing information occasionally our brains developed the memory without conscious effort.

Why this type of learning works is a mystery to me. It just works. It is extremely effective for learning information in a short time with ease. It is immediately applicable to courses where it is only necessary to memorize a collection of facts for an exam. It is also applicable to courses that understanding instead of memorizing is heralded like Organic Chemistry. There is an excellent article on Fear of Memorization discussing how our culture extols reasoning yet pushes away memorization, when they are in fact intertwined. Most of reasoning is memorization. It is necessary to memorize relevant information before we can reason a new problem. While critical to do practice problems for some subjects, it is possible to excel in most by only memorizing.

Khatzumoto at AJATT shares a story of how he learned about the concept Little and Often. It provided foundation for his Japanese-language learning techniques, and also gives solid ground for studying with spaced repetition. Instead of studying in 2+ hour segments for 10 days before an exam, it is only necessary to study a few minutes a day for a few weeks. Studying can be done anytime and broken up into microbite-size pieces if chosen to.

Some people have worked very hard to put together Spaced Repetition Software (SRS) to create flash cards and automatically schedule when to view the cards. The program will know which cards are difficult, and show the more often – and which are easier and need to be seen less often. I have seen people use this technique with hand-made flashcards. The advantage of SRS is that it is very easy to make, edit, search, add pictures/video/audio, share, and generally manage the cards. The program will take care of what cards it is necessary to see so we can avoid the situation of looking at the same cards that we know inside-out-backwards-forwards-and-upsidedown. By showing us only things we need to learn, studying becomes fun!

Anki is the most popular and respected SRS, and it is free. It can be downloaded here. Information the basics of how to use the program are available under the Documentation section of the Anki website. Other options include SuperMemo, Mnemosyne, and Smart.fm.

This website covers useful approaches to learning and models of how to make cards for SRS to develop memories effectively. I am sharing this information because I spent two years learning how to study the hard way while pulling myself up from a rock-bottom GPA. After another two years sinking unfathomable hours into getting high grades on science exams, I found the SRS. My study time and stress reduced so significantly that I want to share these techniques so that low and high GPA students can achieve the grades they want without missing out on life.

Study Shack - Efficient Studying

I have noticed something at the gym. The most lean and muscular guys have something in common. The big guys lifting 3 or 4 times the weight of the average gym patron are creative in how they work out and are always thinking about new ways to accomplish their goal. Instead of going to the gym and talking on their cell phones or chatting with friends, they go alone. They are consistent and when they are at the gym, they are at the gym.

This contrasts most people that go to the gym. They may go with friends and dedicate a portion of their effort into talking with a friend or texting on their cell phone. This expands the time at the gym and moves the mind away from exercising. People who lift weights will know that proper form is essential and requires full attention to make sure all muscles in the body are moving correctly. The big guys are always refining their forms and schedules to continually achieve higher. Do the big guys ever have personal trainers? I have never seen one (I am excluding professional coaches.) They spend a lot of time researching and experimenting ways to improve.

Studying is similar to this. I have seen many people go to the library in groups and give half efforts over several hours to study. This takes a long time and is inefficient. This is most group-study scenarios. I had a study partner for a year and it was very effective for the classes we were taking together. It also required a lot of time studying outside. Looking back though, it was effective because we utilized spaced repetition without even realizing it! Instead of repeating something over and over again in a row until we got it “Right.” We would revisit material and notice what parts we were having trouble with a quiz/challenge each other. By forcing active recall spaced out over time, we both excelled in our classes earning right at the top or near the top. With spaced studying, this can be accomplished alone and much more efficiently. I would rather spend time with friends leisurely instead of studying!

The big guys at the gym lifting the huge weights, the colossi of Biochemistry – they share common methods. Focusing on efficiency and consistency they are able to achieve their goals while other complain of their natural abilities. We can all be in that upper percentile with the right approach.

Study Shack - Efficient Studying

I will come right out and say it: I believe intelligence is a myth. If someone is capable of entering a University, they are almost definitely at a level of being able to accomplish the same grades as those lauded as geniuses in their class. People who are called smart or a genius often just work more and study/think of the material in a creative way.

I have found intelligence to be brought up in two common scenarios: When someone wishes to feel better about themselves by claiming they are smart, or when someone wants to make an excuse about how they are unwilling to put effort into something. Common is the scenario where a student studies many hours for an exam and receives a fraction of the grade of someone that has studied only the night before. I ask: how did these two people study? Sitting in the library staring at the textbook and notes is ineffective and inefficient. It is also frustrating. Studying in a group where only a fraction of the time and conversation is studying is also ineffective and inefficient. Usually the “smartest” person in the group is the one that spends the most efficient time studying outside the group.

My first semester the University I earned a 1.28 GPA. I failed Biology I and Precalculus I, and withdrew from the lowest level Chemistry offered at the university. This was frustrating and I saw people whom I thought were some sort of prodigies of science breeze through the courses. Though I look back now at how I studied: 1 hour per exam staring at the textbook, rarely going to class, and putting myself down for lacking “intelligence.” I even stopped going to class for 2 weeks once Dragon Quest VIII came out for the Playstation 2. Over the following year I worked hard to develop new ways of studying. They took a lot of time, and they worked. The fall semester of my third year I achieved an A in Microbiology, A- in Organic Chemistry I, and an A in English III, while beginning working 20 hours/week. Where did that “intelligence” come from? Did I fall out of the womb destined to one day get A’s in Organic Chemistry? The reality is that I put in the effort, time, and thought necessary to achieve these grades. I continued this trend all the way until now and have earned a GPA above 3.70 every semester while working.

Using spaced repetition, the playing field is leveled. The time necessary to study for exams drops like a lead weight. Simply using the spaced repetition software will make studying more efficient. There is plenty of wiggle room for creatively making flash cards in the software. Better cards build stronger memories faster.

Anyone can do well in Psychology, Chemistry, History, Biology, etc. It is common to hear when someone tells another their major: “Ah! I was never good at xxxx!” Of course they were never good, they never had a solid approach and motivation to learn! I did terrible in every math class I had ever taken in education. On the DAT I earned an 85 percentile on the math section. Worlds above my standard grades for the section. All I did was take a different approach and wanted to learn.

With the proper motivation and approach, we can achieve our target grades.

Edit: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19125691.300 “How to Be a Genius”

Study Shack - Efficient Studying

Khatzumoto over at AJATT tells the story of how he found “little and often.” It is the concept of doing something in small chunks consistently, rather than a several hour session occasionally. This lines perfectly with using SRS. Instead of holing up for several hours at the library for a few nights, it is much more efficient and fun to study in bite size few-minute pieces per day.

Most classes I average under 5 minutes per day to review Anki cards. Usually when I wake up, a few minutes before class, right after getting back from a meal, before going out, a quick break between reading and watching a movie, etc. There are tiny little cracks in the day that can be filled with quickly reviewing Anki cards. It can be done in one swoop all together, or microscopic two-card-per-session divisions. Completely up to you. I like to stop whenever it becomes frustrating and ceases to be fun.

How often to study? Everyday is a fair goal. “I never have the time!” is heard often. However, they have time to cram for 12 hours in 2-3 days before an exam. Where did all this time come from? (See: Inflating Effort). It is more efficient to spread 2 hours (for very difficult courses) over a few weeks than 6X that amount in two days. Everyone can spare a few minutes a day to study. 15 minutes less Facebook time per day to prepare for courses. This is fair considering all the time saved in the long run.

As I type this I realize what Khatzumoto also discusses: how people want to travel the path of least resistance. They have time to watch 4.5 hours of television per day, yet the 20 minutes worth of homework goes unfinished or spread out over several hours because of half-effort. SRS is a great cure for this. Studying is far more manageable and fun with quick little wins than an ambiguous few-hour boring session at the library. SRS is quantifiable. Anki shows exactly how many cards were studied and added each day. Setting a minimum personal goal will lead to another “Win.”

A few years ago I read the results of a study on BBC. The study analyzed the factors that made projects most successful for men and women. Men that kept a consistent log of their activities managed to achieve more and keep the project. Women that discussed their project accomplishments with people close to them also achieved more and continued their project. I have experienced this with keeping a log for the gym, and my Victory Wall. It makes sense for anyone to keep a log of their activities like the Victory Wall. I rarely discuss it, though I know it is important to keeping me going. Women may find talking about their accomplishments would help remain consistent.

Study Shack - Efficient Studying

Biology majors have probably heard the popular saying “Biology is just memorization!” This sounds difficult to believe when there are hundreds of slides to learn for an exam for each class. However, Biology is still just memorization. There are many sides and grey areas to topics and mechanisms as the courses move into upper division, yet it is all possible to just memorize the information and be able to use it to answer even difficult scenario-type questions.

Basic Facts and Multiple Cards

It is critical that before putting information into the SRS, like Anki, the material must be understood. This only means that none of the material is mysterious and  vague. It is okay if the material isn’t memorized – it is the purpose of the program TO memorize. For example: a card detailing a fact about rRNA. If the card creator does not know what rRNA is, the card is useless. This is simple to alleviate. Just make a card, or several cards, explaining what rRNA is!

Front: rRNA is transcribed in the […]

Back: rRNA is transcribed in the Nucleus

Front: rRNA stands for […] RNA

Back: rRNA stands for Ribosomal RNA

Front: Prokaryotic RNA large subunit […Svedberg]

Back: Prokaryotic RNA large subunit 70S

Front: Prokaryotic RNA small subunit […Svedberg]

Back: Prokaryotic RNA small subunit 30S

If the […] is a new concept, head on over to Basic Card Models to read about the basics of making cards. Note how instead of putting the information for both Prokaryotic subunits on one card, the information is split into two cards. This is for optimizing efficiency. Cards should only cover one fact. This seems counterintuitive at first, yet makes sense in practice.

Most of Biology can be strolled through using this basic card model. Here are some more examples:

Front: […Gram] cells contain a peptidoglycan cell wall

Back: Gram (+) cells contain a peptidoglycan cell wall

Front: Gram (+) cells contain a […] cell wall

Back: Gram (+) cells contain a peptidoglycan cell wall

Front: Amoeba move using […]

Back: Amoeba move using pseudopods

Front: […]: One gene affecting several traits

Back: Pleiotropy: One gene affecting several traits

Front: […size] nerve fibers are faster

Back: Larger nerve fibers are faster

Front: […]: Increase in cell numbers

Back: Hyperplasia: increase in cell numbers

Pictures/Diagrams

The hardest part of Biology is memorizing the amount of information. I have found picture card models to be extremely effective at learning oceans of information in a little amount of time. If someone is just beginning to learn Biology and must memorize the visual structures of a cell, this can be done easily using a picture of a cell from the internet and MS-paint. Just find a picture of a cell without labels and make a series of photos drawing an arrow to a cell structure. Alternatively, pull the picture from the powerpoint slides or textbook and occlude the structure names in MS-Paint. Example:

Front: (Picture of cell with arrow pointing to single structure)

                                                    […]

Back: (Picture of cell with arrow pointing to single structure)

                                         Name of organelle

Anatomy and Physiology would be a breeze using this method.

This should cover all areas of Biology except for pathways, which are discussed here(LINK) The effort put in to make the cards multiples over on itself several times with the SRS. Also since this is all on the computer it is much faster. It normally takes me 20-30 minutes per lecture to make cards for science courses.

Study Shack - Efficient Studying

The goal of the SRS cards is to develop strong memories quickly. This is accomplished by making the cards short and targeting exactly where the gap in memory is. The “gap” is marked using what Anki calls Cloze Deletion. Information on using Cloze Deletion can be found here http://ichi2.net/anki/wiki/ClozeDeletion. With cloze deletion it is only necessary to type the fact once, then highlight and click the “Cloze Deletion” button in Anki. It is very important to utilize cloze deletion when making cards. Anki will automatically generate the […], copy the fact into the “Back” area of the card, and give a nice blue highlight.

Basic Facts:

If we want to know the capital of the United States we would write it as such:

Front: […] is the capital of the United States

Back: Washington D.C. is the capital of the United States

Note how the fact is included as a whole rather than an isolated answer. This builds the memory stronger and faster by keeping everything together. We know now that Washington D.C., capital, and United States are all part of a single fact. Let’s look at another example. If we want to memorize where Los Angeles is found:

Front: Los Angeles is located in […state]

Back: Los Angeles is located in California

Of course Los Angeles is located in California. It is also located in the United States. North America. Northern Hemisphere. Earth. Milky Way. Which is the correct answer? All of them! However, we are looking at the state level and leave ourselves a hint to remind us of this. It is important to memorize the fact instead of the fact + what the card is asking.

Definitions:

Definitions are quick and easy with Anki. Often a standard card as shown above can be used interchangeably with a definition. Which one is more suitable to which model will become clear with practice. Definition cards are marked by definition -> word. This takes a bit longer to learn than a standard definition card in an SRS, and builds a stronger memory as well. Here is an example:

Front: […]: Loss of water by leaves

Back: Transpiration: Loss of water by leaves

In some cards it is helpful to maintain part of the thing we are asking. Here is an example:

Front: […] speciation: Geographic isolation

Back: Allopatric speciation: Geographic isolation

Front: […] speciation: Genetic or behavioral isolation

Back: Sympatric speciation: Genetic or behavioral isolation

Leaving speciation in is a small boost. The second card does contain two facts as “genetic or behavioral”, however they are related and were markedly different from Geographic isolation, so I kept them in. It would be easy to just make a series of cards as such:

Front: […] speciation: Genetic or behavioral isolation

Back: Sympatric speciation: Genetic or behavioral isolation

Front: Sympatric speciation: […] or behavioral isolation

Back: Sympatric speciation: Genetic or behavioral isolation

Front: Sympatric speciation: Genetic or […] isolation

Back: Sympatric speciation: Genetic or behavioral isolation

This will take only a few moments using Anki with Copy and Paste and Cloze Deletion.

 Lists:

Lists of information can be memorized as well. This card type is useful when given a related set of short facts and almost nothing else about the topics. This happened a lot in my Political Science course. Here is an example when this is useful:

Front: Unprotected Speech

[…]

Obscenity

“Fighting Words”

Commercial speech

Back: Unprotected Speech

Libel/Slander

Obscenity

“Fighting Words” 

Commercial speech

Front: Unprotected Speech

Libel/Slander

[…]

“Fighting Words”

Commercial speech

Back: Unprotected Speech

Libel/Slander

Obscenity

“Fighting Words”

Commercial speech

Front: Unprotected Speech

Libel/Slander

Obscenity

[…]

Commercial speech

Back: Unprotected Speech

Libel/Slander

Obscenity

“Fighting Words”

Commercial speech

Front: Unprotected Speech

Libel/Slander

Obscenity

“Fighting Words”

[…]

Back: Unprotected Speech

Libel/Slander

Obscenity

“Fighting Words”

Commercial speech

Front: […] Speech

Libel/Slander

Obscenity

“Fighting Words”

Commercial speech

Back: Unprotected Speech

Libel/Slander

Obscenity

“Fighting Words”

Commercial speech

However if we wanted to memorize the organs of a body, it would be more useful to make standard facts about the cards instead of using this model.

List cards allow memorizing of lists very quickly. It creates more cards, though it took me less than a minute to create the five-series of cards just shown. The information will be memorized faster and stronger because it is broken up into pieces. Again, this model is a backup in case the only information given in class about the items is the fact they exist. If we were given more information regarding the items then we can make normal cards with their facts without the list model. List model is PLAN B.

This can also be used to memorize ordered information like Freshman –> Sophomore –> Junior –> Senior. Putting numbers is optional and I found just adds more things to memorize. It is more important to memorize that Junior comes after Sophomore and before Senior than the fact it is number 3. This also helps memorize the surrounding items.

Pictures/Diagrams:

Pictures are a great help to learning information and are excellent ways to build memories. They can be useful in many areas and often require just a little bit more work to build a stronger memory. Some things can only be reasonably learned in a picture, like geography. Let’s say we want to memorize where Germany is on a map. We would take a picture of a map of Europe, or at least Germany + surrounding countries, and block out the Germany name in MS-Paint (A note on MS-Paint. Press ctrl+A and then it is possible to copy and paste the image directly into Anki without having to save it.)

Front: (Picture of map of Europe with Germany name blocked out)

Back: (Unaltered picture of a map of Europe)

This information covers most areas of study. The models are fluid and free to experimentation – they are what I have found to be the most effective after 3 months of using Anki everyday. I read lots of information about SRS cards and also incorporated other facts about learning and memory. The models are a mixture and tweaking of Anki and Supermemo examples with my own refinements.

Making cards is a fun and creative process by finding the most effective way. Inputting the cards and finding a way to summarize the information also helps build the memory! Information for specific subjects can be found in the Table of Contents.

Study Shack - Efficient Studying

Ice skaters remember the time spent hugging the wall. Arms on the rail, sliding and catching before a fall. They will also remember that it is only possible to learn how to skate by letting go of the wall. Falling, failing, is a natural part of the learning process. Just as using SRS to study for classes is a new frontier, it is also necessary to let go of the traditional study methods to go anywhere.

Khatzumoto at AJATT briefly brought up the idea of letting go of the wall in regards to using monolingual dictionaries to learn languages. It can also be applied to using SRS in general to memorize material.

The first time I began to use SRS seriously to study for courses I tried it for one class out of the four. After 2 weeks I realized I learned information much faster and easier than the methods I used before. Immediately I switched all of my courses to SRS and spent the semester developing the techniques I share on this website.

SRS has been called a ‘quiz tool’. It may seem like a tool to review information after it has been earned through the blood, sweat, and tears of forcing information into the mind using traditional methods. However, the SRS review itself builds the memory. Instead of passively looking through material and having an ambiguous acknowledgement of the material as learned, the SRS gives a definite “correct” or “try again.” This active learning is strong and is made efficient by the algorithms running in the background of the SRS.

To realize the full potential of SRS the old ways must be abandoned. Holding onto the wall will earn frustration and partial benefits. Using SRS the first few times will be confusing and making cards will be new. Eventually, and sooner than expected, it will become a fun art to make cards and review the SRS. Each class requires different types of cards and it is fun figuring out how to design the cards to make the new memories most effectively.

I still believe in doing practice problems for classes. The practice problems can even be put into the SRS. However, the memorization necessary to complete the problems should come from SRS cards.

There are a million ‘but-’s and ‘what if-’s that could be used as an excuse. I took the jump because I knew if the method failed I would only have a slightly lower grade on one exam. I came to realize my grades were the same or better, only with SRS it took far less time, effort, and stress to study for the exams. Readers of this website have the benefit of seeing the models of cards I developed to study for courses to be most effective. This will save a lot of time figuring out how to effectively build cards.

Let go of the wall, dive right in.

Study Shack - Efficient Studying